Tips

One click for open folders and files

Open PCManFM in file explorer mode, and go to Edit > Preferences
and in General > Behavior and select Open files with a simple click.

Note: This option work in the pcmanfm --desktop too

Troubleshooting

No "Applications"

First install gnome-menus.
You can try this method: Delete all files in the $HOME/.cache/menus directory, and run PCManFM again.

PCManFM requires the environment variable "XDG_MENU_PREFIX" to be set. The value of the variable should match the beginning of a file present in the /etc/xdg/menus/ directory. In case you have installed the gnome-menus package, you can set the value in your .xinitrc file with the line :

export XDG_MENU_PREFIX=gnome-

See these threads for more informations : [1], and especially this post from the Linux Mint Forums [2]

No icons

If you are using a WM instead of a DE and you have no icons for folders and files, specify a gtk+ icon theme.

If you have e.g. oxygen-icons installed, edit ~/.gtkrc-2.0or/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc and add the following line:

gtk-icon-theme-name = "oxygen"

Note: All instances of PCManFM have to be restarted for changes to apply!

Else, use an different one (gnome, hicolor, and locolor do not work). To list all installed icon themes:

$ ls ~/.icons/ /usr/share/icons/

If none of them is suitable, install one. To list all installable icon packages:

$ pacman -Ss icon-theme

Tip: For an alternative GUI solution, install lxappearance and apply an icon theme from there.

gnome-open opens "Find" dialog instead of the directory

Remove or rename the file /usr/share/applications/pcmanfm-find.desktop. If you're running pcmanfm-mod from AUR, remove or rename the file /usr/share/applications/pcmanfm-mod-find.desktop.

One click for open folders and files

Open PCManFM in file explorer mode, go to Edit > Preferences > General > Behavior select Open files with a simple click.

Note: This option works with pcmanfm --desktop too.

--desktop parameter not working/crashing X-server

Make sure you have ownership and write permissions on ~/.config/pcmanfm.

Setting the wallpaper either by using the --desktop-pref parameter or editing ~/.config/pcmanfm/default/pcmanfm.config solves the problem.

Terminal emulator advanced configuration not saved

Make sure you have rights on libfm configuration file:

$ chmod -R 755 ~/.config/libfm
$ chmod 777 ~/.config/libfm/libfm.conf

Make PCManFM remember your preferred Sort Files settings

You can use View > Sort Files to change the order in which PCManFM lists the files, but PCManFM won't remember that the next time you start it. To make it remember, go to Edit > Preferences and close. That will write your current sort_type and sort_by values into ~/.config/pcmanfm/LXDE/pcmanfm.conf.

"Not authorized" errors when accessing/mounting USB drives

In various window managers (when using with PolicyKit), you might receive a "not authorized" error when trying to access a USB drive.

Edit or create /etc/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.udisks2.pkla to contain the following: